


How To Catch A Snitch

by moonix



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Care of Magical Creatures, F/F, Hogwarts Professors, Kneazles, Post-Canon, Post-Hogwarts, Quidditch, Unicorns, a small tale of a very gentle courtship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21632500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonix/pseuds/moonix
Summary: Luna’s always struggled with giving things a name. Even when it should be easy.
Relationships: Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 8
Kudos: 71





	How To Catch A Snitch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luvanderwon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luvanderwon/gifts).



> Just a wee thing I wrote for my best friend <3

1

“Those flesh-eating slugs still giving you trouble?” Ginny asks, leaning against the fence and picking at the fastenings on her flying gear. Luna wipes her forehead on her arm, trying to avoid her dirt-covered hand, and smiles at the setting sun.

“No, it's alright, we had a talk, the slugs and I,” she says. “Did you want to look at the unicorns?”

“No,” Ginny laughs, her voice thunderstorm-rough and, as always, just a tad bit too loud. Luna likes her a tad bit too loud. “You and I both know that unicorns don't want anything to do with me.”

“Why, because you never shower?” Luna smirks, dodging the leather arm guard that Ginny throws at her. She loses her balance in the progress— _she’s_ not a famous Quidditch star, after all, retired or not—and lands on a giant pumpkin, scaring off a few crows and the Kneazle that was napping under one of its leaves.

“You've got Nargles addling your brain again,” Ginny says. “Come see me after dinner. Your lack of awareness of what makes unicorns tick is appalling, I can teach you a thing or two.”

“Pretty sure that knowing what makes unicorns tick is part of my job description,” Luna laughs. “I’m busy tonight, maybe some other time.”

“Whatever you say, professor,” Ginny says with a wink, and saunters off toward the castle with one arm guard tucked under her elbow and a few curious crows in her wake.

2

The thing about wars is, they never quite end.

Even after all these years, there are still parts of the castle that are inaccessible. Every now and again Luna stumbles into a pocket of deathly silence in the forest, like scorch marks or scar tissue, that nature is loath to reclaim. She does her best to clear the rot out, coaxes saplings and some of the hardier weeds into the ground with Neville’s help. It’s slow work, but she likes it. Her father always said work was the best medicine, and Luna is inclined to agree—there’s been plenty of work at Hogwarts for her these last few years, and she feels at peace.

“Luna,” Ginny says. “Come on. Please? You’re not the groundskeeper.”

“I am while Hagrid is in Romania,” Luna reminds her, finishing her inspection of the beehive. Ginny is leaning against a tree, at a safe distance from the bees that orbit Luna, sleepy and curious as she works.

“It’s just one afternoon. Hagrid comes to Hogsmeade every now and then, too.”

Luna hums. A bee brushes past her cheek, wingtips kissing her sun-bitten skin. She has rows upon rows of jars in the shed, waiting to be filled with jam and honey. The Whomping Willow needs a trim—she could use help with that, actually—and one of the Kneazles gave birth to her litter this morning, six perfectly orange babies. She was going to let Ginny name them, but Ginny is buzzing with a restless energy like the sky before a storm, and Luna thinks she can taste rain on the air.

“Fine,” she hears herself say. “Just one Butterbeer.”

“Score,” Ginny says, already spinning away from the tree. She has her hair tucked into the collar of a thick wool jumper, large enough that it was probably one of her brothers’ once. Luna gave her a haircut last summer, when Ginny grew tired of the bonfire blaze of her mane, but it’s long since grown out again. Some grey is peering through the strands, though it’s not as noticeable this time of year when Ginny’s spent the summer months flying under the open sun, bleaching the rich auburn to a lighter, Firewhisky shade. Luna maintains a sensible pixie cut these days, after too many incidents of snagging her hair on unfriendly plants or, sometimes, creatures. It’s still the same Butterbeer blond as always, and sometimes she envies Ginny her hard-earned greys.

They walk to Hogsmeade—or rather, Luna walks and Ginny jogs backwards, stopping every now and then to chat to passing students. The Hog’s Head is packed, but they find Harry and Neville in a corner with a plate of chips between them and invite themselves to the empty seats and the food.

“What do you think, then?” Harry asks Ginny once they’ve ordered their drinks. “Any promising candidates for the Quidditch teams next year?”

Ginny makes a so-so motion with her hands. The first years’ flying lessons started last week. Luna watched them a bit from where she was fixing up some Bludger-induced damage in the stands, completely by coincidence.

She leaves Harry and Ginny to talk Quidditch and asks Neville about his mandrakes. A few more professors join their table and they shuffle closer together to make space. Ginny’s leg ends up pressed against Luna’s, radiating heat even through the double of layer of Ginny’s sturdy corduroys and Luna’s thick plaid skirt.

She’s at peace. She’s the opposite of at peace. It’s not the worst feeling.

3

“Well, what do you know about unicorns?” Luna asks her class.

The third years mumble and titter awkwardly. Wind whips around them, tugging at the ends of scarves and snatches of conversation. Luna’s unicorns—two old mares, grazing peacefully by the forest’s edge—more or less just came willingly when she asked. She doesn’t believe in capturing creatures against their will, though the crate of sweet apples by her feet may have provided a certain incentive.

One brave girl lifts her hand. With her flyaway red hair and the freckles splashed liberally across her face, she reminds Luna of a thirteen-year old Ginny: defiant, but only just growing into it with a coltish clumsiness.

“They don’t like boys,” the girl says, scrunching her nose a bit as if to say that she, too, does not like boys very much.

“They tend to prefer approaching women,” Luna concedes, nudging the apple crate. “But anyone can get close to them if they follow some simple rules.”

“Excuse me, professor,” one of the boys says, grinning nervously. “Is it true they can only be tamed by virgins?”

“No,” Luna says. “Unicorns can’t be tamed at all, and virginity is a human construct. If you’d be so kind as to hand out these apples, Dorian…”

She goes over the rules with them, watches them line up with excitement. Even the boys seem giddy now as they fool around with their apples and shove each other out of alignment. Luna picks her way across the wet grass and strokes the mares’ flanks, murmuring encouragement. There are far more interesting creatures out there, Luna knows—has seen them on her travels, lived with them, studied them—but she’s never forgotten the sense of marvel she felt the first time she touched a unicorn with her bare hands.

“Ready?” she asks, leading them over with her hands gently tangled in their manes. The red-haired girl steps forward, an apple in her outstretched palm.

4

It rains for the first match of the season. Luna sits with Harry, who’s wearing a suspicious amount of red considering they’re not supposed to take sides. They cast umbrella charms over themselves and any nearby students and Luna shares her hot chocolate with him, curling her clammy hands around the cup to keep them warm. The hand cream Neville made her is working wonders—her knuckles are barely chapped anymore—but she needs to figure out if she can infuse it with a warming charm some time before the winter.

“Well spotted,” Harry mutters when Ginny calls a foul. Game resumes, fast-paced and reckless, the players already drenched to the bone. Neville’s already stocked the hospital wing with Pepper-Up potion ingredients; they’ll need it after today.

The snitch makes a brief appearance, then winks out of existence again, leaving the Seekers reeling in the air. Ginny’s red hair is a beacon in a sea of green and grey. Luna never asked Harry if he ever regrets that the two of them didn’t work out, but she imagines she already knows what he’d say.

It’s in the past, Luna reminds herself. All they can do is face forwards.

5

“What are their names?” Ginny asks, watching the baby Kneazles crawl around their pen under the careful surveillance of their mother.

“They don’t have any yet,” Luna says, a little guiltily. She’d meant to ask Neville to come and help her pick, but they’ve both been busy and it’s not like the Kneazles particularly care.

Luna’s always struggled with giving things a name. She looks down to where Ginny’s hand brushes hers, pinkies curled together like unnamed newborns, and swallows.

“Well, that’s dumb,” Ginny says, as if reading her thoughts. She holds out a hand and lets the mother sniff it, waiting for her approval before touching her babies. “Look at the wee tots, they’re going to cause so much trouble soon. How are you going to call them out if they don’t have names?”

“I couldn’t think of any,” Luna admits. “I’d rather they have no names than the wrong ones.”

Ginny draws her hand back, then plucks a stray leaf out of Luna’s hood and lets it tumble into the pen for the Kneazles to play with.

“You’re an idiot,” she mumbles, fondly. Luna is abruptly reminded of the first time Ginny made herself known in Luna’s life—the way she’d just appeared, one moment to the next, telling people off for making fun of Luna in-between classes. Shifting the world on its axis.

“Sometimes I wonder why you put up with me,” Luna says, both a joke and not. Ginny just throws her head back and laughs. Too loud, always too loud. Like she’s trying to fill an empty space.

“Come up to my office later,” Ginny says easily. “I have some stuff for you.”

“Me too,” Luna replies. “Jam and apples and honey. I keep forgetting.”

“Let’s make a trade, then,” Ginny says, touching her shoulder and tugging at the fabric of her cloak. Ginny isn’t usually a touchy person, just with people she’s flirting with, and—oh.

Luna’s always struggled with giving things a name. Even when it should be easy.

“I will,” Luna promises. “Come by. Later.”

“Great,” Ginny smiles. “Don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

Another tug on her cloak, then Ginny pushes away from the pen, her smile still wedged awkwardly into the corner of her mouth.

6

Not everything needs a name, Luna decides as she packs a basket for Ginny. Her pumpkin patch is threatening to overtake the last pumpkin-free slivers of her garden, so she picks the cleanest looking ones and expands the basket to fit them as well. Maybe she should introduce her pumpkins to the bald patches in the forest that she and Neville are still working on mending. She’ll talk to him about it tomorrow.

On a whim, Luna grabs a bag and rolls up a few clothes, a flannel and a towel. She tucks her toiletries into the satchel with the Thestral pun that Harry gave her for Christmas last year and sits on her bed, looking around herself. She grew used to sleeping in all sorts of places while travelling, but this—staying with a friend when she has a perfectly good bed in her room—still comes with a certain unease.

Ginny greets her with an armful of Quidditch gear and ushers her inside. There’s tea by the fireplace and a plate of pumpkin pasties, still warm. Luna arranges her own pumpkins on the mantelpiece and lines the jam jars up on the shelf above the sink while Ginny finishes sorting through her gear.

“I’m donating this stuff,” Ginny grunts, wrestling an old cloak stiff with mud. “But I thought I’d see if any of the students want it first.”

“Good idea,” Luna says. She settles into the tartan armchair with a cup of tea and a pasty, then tentatively admits: “I named them.”

“What, the Kneazles? Oh, good,” Ginny laughs. “What did you call them?”

Luna, who has made a life out of minding her own business and being indifferent to mockery, is suddenly afraid that Ginny will laugh at her.

“Tell me,” Ginny coaxes, throwing herself down in the other armchair and stretching out her legs until she can nudge Luna’s knee with her bare toes.

“Butternut, Ambercup, Spaghetti, Acorn, and Banana. They’re all types of squash.”

Ginny does laugh, but not in the way Luna feared. It fizzles through her like wet-starting fireworks, making her warm.

“That’s only five, though. What about the sixth?”

Luna shrugs.

“I ran out of squash. But I thought maybe you’d like to name the last one.”

“How about Snitch,” Ginny suggests immediately, like she didn’t even have to think about it. This time it’s Luna who laughs.

“Of course. The smallest one, then.”

“The troublemaker,” Ginny agrees.

They smile at each other over their cups of tea. Ginny’s foot still rests against Luna’s knee.

She’s at peace and she isn’t. Some things are better unnamed; untamed, free.

She picks up an apple and offers it to Ginny, palm outstretched.


End file.
